Music instructional textbooks are the conventional resources for learning music theory. Music is an international language, therefore, certain rules, patterns, and formulas apply so that written music can be interpreted by all languages and all musical instruments.
Music is written with symbols that represent different things, and some symbols representing more than one thing. For example Music Notes are used to identify time value. Key Signatures are used to identify Sharps # and Flats b. Numbers such as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 are used to identify degree of a scale. Roman numerals such as I II III IV V VI VII VIII are used to identify different degrees of a scale for identifying a chord. Letters such as C, Dm, G7, Eb are used to identify the names of chords. Music staff, treble staff and bass staff are used to identify lines and spaces on which music is written. Letters such as A B C D E F G are used to identify notes, scales, chords, lines and spaces.
All text books for teaching music theory or how to play a musical instrument use the music staff. This means that a student must be able to read the notes on lines and spaces. Although the written music is the same, different musical instruments such as keyboards, string instruments, and wind instruments produce sounds in different ways. The student is forced to learn scales and chords for corresponding instruments by finger memorization and repetition. Understanding and memorizing scales and chords by this method can be very difficult for a student first learning music theory.
Unfortunately most instructional books do not visually organize scales and chords in alternative formats which are easily understandable. Some texts include cryptic two-dimensional charts which compare the notes of one chord or scale to another. Other texts provide cryptic charts of whole steps and half steps taken to make scales and chords, all of which are shown on a music staff (lines and spaces). Other books use a chart commonly called the circle of fifths to show the relationships between Major scales, Minor scales, chords, and key signatures.
However, all of these books, charts, and tables are for reference purposes only. None of these materials offer an interactive mechanism for learning scales and chords. Consequently there exists a need for an apparatus that supplements the information in music instructional books by providing an easier method for learning music scales and chords. Learning and understanding scales and chords in the music language is as important as learning the alphabet and words in any language.
The prior art includes a few devices which are operative to display scales and chords, however, none of them are overly useful for learning scales and chords. For example prior art hand held computer devices have been developed which are operative to display the lines and spaces of a music staff. Again these lines and spaces are just as are found in a text book. Other prior art devices display the keys of a piano keyboard. Although these devices provide a quick and easy method to lookup the notes of a particular scale or chord, these devices are not practical for teaching a student the relationships between different scales and chords.
Consequently there exists a further need for an instructional apparatus that is useful for teaching a student which notes comprise major and minor scales. There further exists a need for a music instruction apparatus that is operative to teach a student how to construct chords from scales. There further exists a need for a music instruction apparatus that allows a student to learn music theory without first having to learn to read lines and spaces, note values and, music terminology.